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Wednesday, July 27, 2011

Wine Wednesday: Bump Sauvignon Blanc

One of the best tasting Sauvignon Blancs I've had in ages was unknown to me until about a week ago: Bump. That's the name of the Sonoma winery. --- I don't know where the name Bump came from and don't care. All I know is that I can't wait to get my hands on some more Bump Sauvignon Blanc 2009, which sells here for $14.99.

This is a unique (read: delicious) expression of Sauvignon Blanc, one of the best I've ever come across. It has a wonderfully fleshy mouthfeel -- more body than expected with SB -- and yet it's crisp and bone-dry, with rich tropical-fruit flavors and gorgeous aromas. There is 5 percent Chardonnay added to 95 percent Sauvignon Blanc Musque grapes, which helps lend a bit more body and roundness to the wine.

For techno wine-geeky types, here are some details about how Bump is made, from the winemaker, Geordie Carr:

"I picked the fruit fairly late in the season, a little bit riper than a lot of SB producers, this is where some of the tropical notes develop. Then whole-cluster pressed all of it, none was de-stemmed. I settled the juice for 36 hours and then racked it off the gross lees, the real heavy stuff, but I kept a lot of the lighter creamy lees. Then I innoculated with a cold-tolerant yeast and fermented over about 25 days at about 63 degrees, so it went slowly and kept the fruit character. My red wines are native yeast, but the white was commercial yeast due to the cold temperature of the fermentation. When it was almost dry I put it down to neutral French oak (Francois Freres, Cadus, and Remond) all at least four years old, where it stayed for almost seven months. There were light lees in the barrels that were stirred regularly through the barrel aging. I was reluctant to do much fining, therefore it is possible for some proteins to bind and there are still some tartrates that will form if refrigerated, so I hope tartrates or proteins are not too much of a presence in any of the wine. I did not introduce Malolactic bacteria, however it did go mostly through ML on its own. There is also a bit of RS [residual sugar) left in this wine which really fattens up the midpalate. I did blend in a little bit (5%) of Chardonnay, which I felt improved this wine, but I do not intend to add the Chardonnay in the future vintages. The clone of Sauvignon Blanc in this wine is the Sauvignon Musque clone, which I really like for its aromatic component. The grapes are not particularly thick-skinned, however the skin does really contribute to the phenolics here.'

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